KUALA LUMPUR, May 28 — Just like many industries, the entertainment world has not been spared by the coronavirus pandemic with production grinding to a halt during these uncertain times.

Actress Juliette Lewis is staying positive however, optimistic that things will start moving again for the creative community.

She’s also certain the coronavirus lockdown will influence television shows, movies, books and music in the near future.

“I’ve seen the shift in all of my creative friends. 

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“The analogy would be that it’s like a dam when you shut off water and it has to go another way,” she said recently.

The 46-year-old who has a penchant for playing quirky, offbeat roles said the creative community is eager to get back to work once it’s safe again.

“We’ve seen all these creative folks readjust to keep creating and I think lockdown, the preventing of creating in the way they know, I feel like once floodgates open there will be so much passion and vigour in a way we haven’t seen for a long time.”

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“It’s in the air and we are raring to go – we will come back safely and once we’re in the swing it will happen.”

Lewis currently stars in the HBO limited drama series I Know This Much Is True alongside Mark Ruffalo where she plays Frank Nedra, a self-absorbed grad student turned professor.

The series, based on Wally Lamb’s award-winning New York Times bestseller of the same name is a family saga following the lives of twin brothers Dominick and Thomas Birdsey (played by Ruffalo) in an epic story of betrayal, sacrifice and forgiveness.

Having done her fair share of film and TV that were adapted from books in a career spanning 30 years, Lewis says she is an actress who looks at the piece at hand so that one doesn’t get too attached to what the book is, she said.

“So the point is I never read the book but I did talk to Derek a lot and he told me about Nedra Frank, my character but no, I didn’t read the book,” she said, referring to the show’s acclaimed writer and director Derek Cianfrance.

For Lewis, it’s all about the character’s energy – finding their heart and soul.

“It’s funny because I think it’s really metaphysical when I talk about acting because I sort of call it ‘energy work.’ 

“I think about what vibrations they are buzzing on.”

Lewis described her character Nedra as a tightly wound up woman who on the surface, tries to present herself as an important professional woman but is exploding with neuroses internally.

The daughter of the late actor Geoffrey Lewis, the Los Angeles native earned a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination for her role in the 1991 Martin Scorsese remake of Cape Fear when she was just 18, acting alongside Robert De Niro.

Speaking of the legendary auteur, Lewis said: “He gave me my creative wings and what that meant was that he encouraged what was innately natural to me, which was always to do things fresh and different each take.”

“He gave me everything because I learnt how to develop and trust my instincts, which is everything for a young artist.”

Lewis, whose career launched when she was 14 and went on to appear in films such as National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, said she is forever indebted to Scorsese.

“There are a handful of people you could say I owe my career to and he’s one of them.”

I Know This Much Is True airs same time as the US on Monday at 9am on HBO GO and HBO (Astro Ch 411 HD) with a same-day encore at 10pm on HBO.